Journey of the Messenger Cycle 2 Part 6b

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Berri was glad to be heading out for a few days, not that the past couple of days had been horrible. In fact, things had improved considerably since Ijah had been reunited with her family. The family that was here, in West Port. She had been surprised to learn that there was another husband, two wives and three more children back in their homeland. Of course, there were also the six, now five, wives that had gone with Ijah to Swampdonin in the first place.

It had been really touching to see the reaction from Jun and Dovarr when Ijah had walked into their temporary home for the first time. There had been smiles, tears and big hugs. Berri had been a bit embarrassed during that initial reunion. She felt like an intruder, witnessing something precious, not meant for her. When the three of them went to the common room, Berri had stayed in the front and busied herself preparing some food.

Merhaj had returned to the dwelling, livid that Berri had not stayed at the old temple until she had come to escort her home. Berri tried to tell her that Ijah was there and that there was food ready. Sadly, Berri’s poor command of the language had only seemed to enrage the woman further. She was on the verge of striking Berri when Ijah walked into the front room, drawn by the loud exchange. The stunned look on Merhaj’s face had been kind of funny.

The two of them had gone off to have a quiet conversation, a while later the five of them sat down together to eat. Merhaj’s attitude towards Berri had changed, thankfully. Still, when the meal was done Berri had cleared the mess, cleaned up a bit, then turned in earlier than usual.

The next morning Ijah had asked if she would be willing to take a couple of messages over to the east side of the city. Berri had mentioned the orchestra that Moon had invited her to go see. Much to her surprise Ijah had given her a few days to go be with her new friend and she would be able to stay at some fancy lord’s manor while in the east side of the city. First, she had attended her usual classes, informed the Demas of her expected absence and that evening Ijah, Merhaj and Berri had trained in unarmed forms.

“Berri. Are you paying attention?”

“Yes, Ijah.”

“What did I just say?”

“Ah, when I get to the manor, the lady in charge is Marrilas. You want me to give a message to Roddarra and another to a woman by the name of Elli…?”

“And…?”

“Um, you said I can take a few days and-”

“After the part when you deliver the messages.”

“Oh, was there something after that? Ah, yes, coming back, Miss Marrilas can make arrangements with a boatman to take me back here.”

“And?”

“Er, the girl Elli might be coming back here with me?”

“Woman, but yes. Okay. Did you have any questions?”

“Sure, not related to what we’ve been talking about. Um, I was wondering why they kept you from your family for so long after you arrived?”

“They had a lot of questions. The chroniclers wanted more details on just about every part of our trip. There were questions about the situation in Swampdon and of many of the places we went; Brisken, GreensBridge, Jander’s Town, the Sudakkar, the Republic of Caffern and the Black Tower. As well, there were a lot of questions about Igma. I also think they were making sure I had not gone native.”

“Gone native? What’s that mean?”

“Perhaps that was a poor turn of phrase. They were making sure my loyalties were still aligned with our purpose here.”

“To educated the poor benighted northern lands?”

Ijah shrugged, “Sure.”

“Hmm, alright then. Was there anything else?”

“Well, I wanted to apologize, on behalf of the family, for the way my daughter treated you.”

Berri eyebrows rose, “You have a daughter! Who?”

Ijah gave her a questioning look, “Merhaj?”

“What? She’s your daughter!” Berri scoffed, “What were you, eleven when you had her?”

“Berri.” She looked cross.

“Yes, Ijah?”

“I am not her natural mother, I’m one of her mothers.”

“Oh. Who is the natural mother?”

“Kahljina.”

“But Merhaj is not a mage.”

“No. Not everyone who has a talent for magic produces magically gifted children.”

“Interesting, I did not know that.”

“Which?”

“Either.”

Ijah paused a moment, giving Berri an appraising look, she took a deep breath then asked, “How are you for marks? Do you need any?”

“Money? No, I’m rich Ijah, I thought I told you that.”

“Rich? I don’t remember you saying anything of the sort. What do you mean by rich?”

“Oh, I was sure I had told you… Well, I sold that bow Flint had given me, to some noble at a festival me and Moon were at. I was able to get a really nifty crossbow and a bunch of marks, and a promissory for the rest.”

“I see. Well, it sounds like you were able to get a good deal. Have you verified the promissory?”

“No. Moon said I’d need to go to a bank or a money lender to do that.”

“Well, keep in mind that the marks, nor the promissory will be much good to you once we’ve left Maldorn.”

“It’s one of the things I’m going to look after. Moon said she could help me, to make sure no one tries to short me.”

“Alright then. It’s likely a good idea for you to be heading out soon, especially if you are still intent on trying to walk across the river. We could still have someone take you across by boat.”

“That’s okay. I want to see if I can really walk across the river.”

“Keep in mind that there is a lot of turmoil in the city and a lot of desperate people. You should be fine on the east side, but still, stay aware.” Ijah paused a moment, then added, “Oh, feel free to invite Moon over for a visit here or perhaps invite her to the solstice celebration. I believe we’ll gather at the manor for the solstice.”

“That’s great. I’d like her to meet you… I should get going then.”

Ijah gave a nod and a smile, “We’ll see you in a few days.”

Berri gathered her belongings and headed out. She went north and quickly left the Kereshi enclave behind her. There was a drastic difference in the feel of the city once she was out of the enclave. Most notably, there were a lot more men. At first it had seemed unusual, but she realized that most of the city was like this, with men and women about their business in relatively equal numbers. Sometimes it was hard to remember that the enclave was the exception, not the rule.

As she tracked north along the riverside streets she saw more and more destitute people, she passed through a couple of intersections where there were large numbers of folks just milling about. She passed beggars, men and women who were selling their bodies. One woman even offered to sell her children to Berri as she passed, for nothing more than some food or a bit of money to get food.

Berri had not known what to do about that. She had intended to stop and give the woman some marks, but the moment she slowed a large number of people seemed to take note of her and there was nothing friendly about the speculation she saw in their eyes. She had clutched the strap to her lute case tightly and casually put her hand into her coat pocket where her knife was. She moved on, taking note of the couple of ruffians who followed her for a while.

Further north, towards the edge of the stone that defined the city on this side of the river she saw what appeared to be Tannicans giving out bread. Hundreds of people had lined up to get some and more seemed to be flowing into the area from all directions. There were a dozen or more wagons loaded with bread, servants were distributing it to those in need. She saw guards, both afoot and on horseback. A couple well dressed Tannican men seemed to be overseeing the operation.

Berri was soon moving across wooden platforms north of the main city. In some ways it reminded her of home, Swampdon was a city in the trees and there were many platforms of various sizes throughout. Here, in West Port, the platforms were built along the edges of the river, above various channels or spanned sand filled areas where the river sometimes overflowed the main banks. Some of the platforms were more like giant rafts, extending far out onto the river. It was towards one of these that she moved, hoping to find her way across from one platform to another, to reach the far side.

She noticed very few refugees out on the platforms, yet numerous people were living on the water in small wooden houses. Most folks appeared relatively poor, though there was no signs of the desperation she had seen in the main part of the city. These people were able to live off what they could catch or gather from the river. It seemed that many of them were able to catch enough fish to trade, there were many heavily laden boats going south.

Eventually she reached the platforms that extended furthest eastward. Across a gap of about a yat she could see the platforms on the other side extending out towards this side of the river, much to her disappointment there were actually no platforms that would allow her to walk from one side to the other.

A local woman, wearing relatively little despite the coolness of the day asked her, “You lost?”

“Lost? No.” She pointed to the east side of the city. “Walk over?”

The woman gave a rude laugh, “Yeah, No.” More followed but Berri did not understand everything she had said.

She caught the gist of it however. She looked back the way she had come, “Do you know one with boat?”

“I’d take you across, for ten marks.”

“Ten marks!”

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